Man, I can so relate. Not only to the hair thing -- there are pictures of me out there with Robert Plant-esque hair from multiple bad perms (until they perms caused my hair to BREAK RIGHT OFF) -- but ALSO to the whole shy thing, which people don't believe.

Love the blog, hate Mr. X.

Am I first! yay!

I am waiting with baited breath to see it!

Side-part mohawk? I can hardly wait!

Can I post my sister's Annie Lennox 80s (barely there) platinum haircut? Hm, I suppose I should ask her first.

If anyone did a Sinead - I'm dying to see it!

I was never daring enough to attempt a side-part mohawk (how punk of you!)...my adventures in personal grooming began & ended with the squashed-pink-curler-parallelogram hair. Hats off (or on?) to you, CAP!

We all love Laurie, right? And we care about her, right? We can't wait to see all her hair photos, right? We even knit things for her grandmother, right? Laurie is a terrific blogger, but she works all day behind a computer and then blogs at night. And then she knits in her "knitting spot." This is not HEALTHY for her. Our favorite knitting hottie needs to get out there and live life to the fullest. I'm not talking about wild parties and three dates a night... just yet. I say, start small, like meeting a fellow blogger -- and his wife -- for lunch? Someone who lives in the SAME CITY as she does.

I declare this week as "Convince Laurie to Have Lunch with another Local Blogger" week! I'll even do my cholesterol so harm and eat some of that Southern Fried Chicken.

By the way, us guys had some pretty scary hair in the past as well...

Oh, I am SO in on this!!! As a former salon employee I can horrify the masses with some of my hair experiments. Heehee!

I can't wait for the dawning of the Age of Aquarius! Hehe.

Neil, don't do this ... I might have a heart attack from the pressure.

But I'll have a party at my house one day and ya'll are very invited. That way I can go hide in the back bedroom ... which is what I do at all my parties. Fun!

Mine was just a long series of bad perms!

I am shy in the same way you are, Laurie, so I entertain. I talk a lot and tell funny stories about dumb things I ahve done, and let me southern accent come out stronger, because it entertains people and puts them at ease, which helps put me at ease. I often think that life is one big party and I don't know what to wear.

You have brothers?! For some reason I thought
you were an only child..

You have brothers?! For some reason I thought
you were an only child..

Ginnie... that's why I like to have people come over, too! I can just drank and carryon and chitchat and hide when necessary. And even if it makes me seem vaguely crazy-old-southern woman, it helps keep the anxiety at a manageable level LOL

The last time I went to stitch 'n bitch was on my birthday and I got so nervous from all the attention that I made Jennifer go outside with me so I could hide for an hour. Or... two. I think I lost three pounds that night in perspiration alone.

Caro ... I do have brothers! I wrote about them once here:
http://www.crazyauntpurl.com/archives/2005/11/please_dont_ask.php
And then here is a picture of us:
http://www.crazyauntpurl.com/archives/2005/04/woman_vs_nature_1.php

I think the most daring thing I ever did with my hair was where braids, Pippi Longstocking style.

So. Not. With. It.

Looking forward to next week.

People do the same thing when I claim shyness, too! And one of my bosses was shocked - SHOCKED I TELL YOU! - when a personality test they administered rated me as an INTROVERTED blah blah blah. :)

Can't wait for the Hairstories. I already fell out of my chair laughing at the Wall O Bangs, in that way you do when you think, "Wow, I remember that hairstyle..."

No, I never did have a Side-Part Mohawk of Death... but I did have the Tightly Coiled Perm of Mike Brady and the Hair Cut Directly to Awkward Length. That last one would be where, instead of going straight for the short haircut which would then over the course of three months grow to awkward mid-neck length, I actually had my stylist CUT THE HAIR TO AWKWARD MID-NECK LENGTH. And she must not have liked me enough to say, "Honey, this is awkward. Let me give you a Dorothy Hamill."

I also, only two years ago, went for the Brave Sir Robin look. Apparently I am a woman who goes for hairstyles that look bad even on the men for whom they are intended. Somebody stop me!!

What a fantastic idea! I can't wait to post pictures of my hair in blue, pink and white tones :)

Love your blog by the way, I just discovered it, and you're hilarious!

I can show you the time Mama went crazy and got us all perms, including my little brother. I think that unfortunate hair incident is one of those things that "we just don't talk about dear." if you know what I mean.

C

Introverts of the world unite! Yeah, I'm shy and nobody believes me either. Thing is, after I'm around people I then need to go sit by my lonesome until I recover.

I'll have to see if I can't scare up a scary perm pic. I'm currently considering dying my hair some vivid color--I think I've finally got enough gray to make it worthwhile (my hair is dark, dark brown. As much as I loved the idea of dying it blue during my misspent youth, I knew I'd have to bleach the crap out of it for the color to show up. Now that mother nature has taken care of that for me, though...)

Side-Part Mohawk? Like Cyndi Lauper in the Time After Time Video? I had the same haircut...for years. What was even worse was trying to grow it out. Unfortunately I don't think there are any surviving photos. Really.

Well, I will have to see what I can find in my old photos of bad hair!

Happy Turkey Day to you!

Kay

I will be surprised if you can beat my 5th grade style, which involved bangs. I have curly hair, which gets curlier when it is shorter...which means I basically looked like I had a wad of pubic hair on my forehead. Nice.

Looking forward to this for sure... I'll have to check the ol' archives and see what I can come up with for my own bad hair examples. Lord knows there were more than one of them!

I.cannot.wait.

I am very shy too. It as awful growing up. My mom always gave me an Orphan Annie perm twice a year. Kids used to call me "Poodle Head". When I turned 16 I cut it all off into a boyish style. I'll have to see if I can find some pics for you.

My hair wasn't weird it was just ugly. So I probably won't post any pictures of it, but I am really looking forward to seeing some weird.

Just discovered your blog, and enjoy it as much as everyone else. I too was a hair disaster. I thought my asymetrical bob was so chic!!!

So painfully shy that there don't exit such pictures of me!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Purl, you really do gotta get out more. Come to the Frolic Room tonite - low key dive bar. Drink wine. Knit. And technically, it's only "happy hour", so if you want to leave after an hour, that's cool.

AND, next time you come to SnB, it won't be your bdday, so we will totally ignore you. :)

Bring on the pictures and the wine...

speaking of wine, there are rumors that Walmart is planning to carry its own brand of wine. Good thing for you, because you will now be able to get your CAN of wine and a TUPAC of panties all in the same store. The possibilities are endless!

You WERE a daring teenager having a side part mohawk. I only dared go as far as Leather Tuscadero (from Happy Days) look. And you are shy now? Give yourself a couple of years. I believe shyness starts wearing off after 40. After that it's "what the hell, I'm OK with not being liked by absolutely everyone." I bet in a few years you also say "I don't care if I have panty lines, I'm not threading a string up my *ss anymore."

My walk through haircuts - 1970's to present: Pixie, Shag, Orange Sun-Inned Shag, Dorothy Hammill, Perm, asymmetical, Modified Mohawk (involves really short sides and a permed center), an inadvertent mullet (just a bad "stylist" - My head looked like a shelled peanut), grown-out to shoulers with side part (ugh), super short pixie. Now, variation on a pixie. Full spectrum of colors.

This is totally unrelated, but Laurie you should go to this link and get on this show.
http://www.knittygritty.com/beonshow.htm

Just don't send them the picture of the "Wall O' Bangs" (all of my unfortunate photos are at my folks, and they are staying there.)

Good luck on your project and have a great holiday!

So, you must have managed to get the project pulled out of your a$s, huh? We KNEW you could do it! Yeahhhh!!!

Shy? Girl, you don't know from "shy but nobody would know it" like I do. I may appear to be all extroverted but I'm just a huddled little mass yearning to be back in my room where I'm with my cat who loves me. Except for my hub I have no real friends even - just a few acquaintences I see occasionally. They all think I am SO lively, when I really just like to stay home, knit, read, watch TV, chat with the hub and the cat... In other words, you are not wierd - but you really should go meet Neil and his wife. It never hurts to have acquaintences, you know :)

DAMN! most of my pictures are in the pit of dipair--er, the crawlspace. Cowering behind the christmas decorations. Where they should be.

I was too shy in school to have daring hair escapades. However, at the age of 33, I have outgrown most of my shyness and am having a Delayed Teen Rebellion in my little pea brain.

I seriously want purple streaks. I'm going to wait until after Christmas so as not to make my mother cry, but there is purple in the future.

And I'm planning a tattoo for my 40th birthday. And I WILL have to hide it from said mother, lest she expire from mortification on the spot.

She should be glad I don't talk about my underwear on the internets. Although if I had a nice collection of Lacey and Cute, I might.

Hairstory! I love it! Hairapy (hair therapy) for the introverts in us all!!

Hi Laurie,

Have been innernet-stalking you for a while now, but I just had to comment on the "I'm shy! Honest! Why don't y'all beleive me??" thing. When I'm out and about (yes, yes, I AM Canadian), I've the life o' the party, but good golly, what it takes to get me out of my house... I have told people my dad/mum/brother/grandmother/neighbour's cat has had a heart attack (!!) just to get out of dinner plans. Liar, liar, pants aflame! But I just want to be home with my knitting and my TV and my chips and my wine (or gin). It's warm in here and nice and cozy and I do not want to face the cold, mean city I now live in (so far from friendly, sunny Manitoba). Is that so wrong? Well, maybe...

So go meet Neil and his wife, would you? Take a deep breath (and half a bottle of Cabernet) and face your fear. Do it for all of us.

Nobody believes me when I tell them I'm shy either. I was a journalist! I TALKED TO PEOPLE FOR A LIVING!

But on the weekends? I would spend the entire weekend alone with my cats and total silence. No TV, no radio, no music. Just blissful silence. I needed to recharge my batteries.

But I take classes at night, and I talk in class ALL THE TIME. Why? Because I know the answers and I get frustrated when the professor keeps asking questions and the class gives her a blank look. In group situations, I take over because I get impatient when nobody else takes charge and LEADS, damn it!

You really do need to write a book. Honest. You would sell millions of copies.

Dude, I did a post about my traumatic hair history earlier this month after accidently finding some horrifying pictures. Can't wait to see yours!

Huh, I get the same reaction when I tell people I'm shy or an introvert. They think I'm making it up because I'm perhaps, sometimes, an over-sharer. I'll bet I could out-recluse you. I can spend the whole weekend in my house with my dog and be completely happy without any humans talking or interacting with me.

I can't wait to see these (as I remember my scary feathered hair)!

Cannot wait for next week! How sad am I?

I, too, will join the ranks of the introverted extrovert!

In my case it's so desperately NOT wanting to say something - ahem - bitchy. Which I can do. Yes, oh-so-bitchy. Which really is like saying something stupid times 50

I enjoy getting energy from a group, from friends, but on my own terms (this I've learned about me!) Then I have to go back to my cave and use the muse - ponder the yonder - gain some quiet away from the riot. Did I mention I'm a middle aged white lady rapper...?

I will anxiously be awaiting the hair flashbacks.. cause the sun-in incident sounds like it may be way too familiar.. and a side part mohawk.. You rock on with your bad self. My mommy refused downright put her foot down to the mohawk.. side part or otherwise even though my best friend at the time had one.. So Cant wait to see the pictures and read the telling tales of how they came to be

How can any of us bloggers be true introverts if we tell our intimate secrets every day to thousands of strangers online? My feeling is that anyone who shares a photo of their bad 80s hair really wants to burst out of their introvert shell and sing and dance like Madonna! (now that would be a popular YouTube video, Laurie! Do you own any conical bras? Can you knit one?)

I can't wait to see the flashbacks!Oh, man. I worked an 80's mullet and it wasn't good. And the big,BIG hair. I still have a weakness for it.

Ah, but have you ever had to go out on the balcony in 20 deg F weather (sans jacket) b/c you were hyperventilating and nauseated (and yet sober) at a party? The shyness thing really does improve as you get older.

Even when I had a poodle perm my hair was still small. Oh well. Just wasn't meant to be.

I don't believe that there are any pictures of it, but when I was in seventh grade, on a rainy Easter Sunday no less, I decided to trim my bangs. Having no concept of how to get them even nor or the whole hair shortens as it dries principal.... I wound up with the nick name "Spike" for about a month. Not flattering for a girl....

Can't wait to see 'em!!!! I'm laughing (not at yours, cuz of course I haven't seen yours yet, duh) but at mine, with the perm of death, the Pat Benatar wannabe 'do, the saying that "oh, i'm trying to 'train' my hair this way" - as IF it can be trained!!!!! Please say we weren't the only ones who sadistically abused our hair on a daily basis...

Can't wait to see the side-part mohawk. You flock-of-sea-GAL, you! But, let me ask you this -- did you ever do the "Chrissie"? (And don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talkin' 'bout.) For those too young to remember, I refer you to the Suzanne Sommers/Three's Company mini-ponytails, like this one: http://tinyurl.com/y5mmj3 .

Can't wait to see the hair pics! I think it's great to be gutsy even if you end up looking like a dork until your hair grows out (as long as it's not me doing it anyway, I'm a total puss).
I'm the same way about being around people, I REALLY never thought so many other people were. After I go home I'm like that Chris Farley character on Saturday Night Live, the talk show host that would get upset at himself for saying stupid things and hit himself repeatedly about the head. ARGH!

You know those tests -- usually the Meyers Briggs -- which reveal to your surprise that you are an INTROVERT? (me too, by the way)...

A test-giver once revealed that what is being measured is what aspect of personality governs the way you function best. Lots of people who act "extroverted" do so because that is their anxiety-default behavior to cover their introversion. So a blogger (like the great and powerful Oz, invisible behind the computer) can write a highly sociable blog and be very good at this from the safe space of home ... as opposed to being a stand-up comedian delivering the same material.

As for bad hair? I was so boring. I had Prince Valiant hair as a child and as a teen in the 1970s I had long, straight, parted down the middle Marcia Brady hair. And I had it FOREVER. At one point in my last year of college I gave myself a perm that made me look like somebody stuck Robert Plant's finger in an electric socket. As soon as that grew out a few inches I had it cut into a pixie cut, then let it grow long again. It has been various lengths over the past 25 years since then but always straight and never colored, except once with henna, which did not impress me one bit.

If Neil wants to see tricks, he can go to my myspace page and see Syd and I perform magic.

As for my hair, I never had the mullet in the 80's, thank god, the only difference now is it's just grayer and Im fatter! See the pics from 1983, when I was in broadcasting, on the myspace page.

And Laurie, who cares if you say stupid/awkward/ridiculous/offensive things? Not me. I do it all the time and I get laughs for it. If I can make em laugh, I have em in my pocket.

Not bad for a California kid who is relocated to the south (the exact opposet of you).

Oh no. You want me to post The Bun, proving to all and sundry that I am really, truly as out of it as I keep claiming to be?

Well, maybe.

You have that talking-too-much-when-nervous-and-saying-the-wrong-thing-while-perspiring disease, eh? Sometime let's play 100 Ways To Make Your MIL Hate You, Or At The Very Least Decide You Are Criminally Inane.

(No, that is not a typo.)

Just wanted to tell you how much I like (no, love) your blog. It better than medicine when I am feeling low, blah, etc. Hard to believe you are shy and reclusive. The personality that comes across in your writing is so full of life and spontaneity (sp?). Hope your Turkey Day is just wonderful.

While I myself had my own PERM OF DEATH for 4 years, (Yes, count 'em! 4!), I have managed to destroy all photographic evidence of said hair mangling. So, while I am unable to share in the hair-horror, I will promise to not point and laugh at yours, but will instead sympathise and share in the consuming of wine.

cheers.

I know I'm going to regret showing off my ignorance, but what is a mullet?

If any of your readers get to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Fest, or Stitches East, or a bunch of other shows, track down Susan's Fiber Shop. Ther is a woman there who has lavender hair. Her most-used phrase at a show is "Yes, I know my hair is lavender."

It's not so bad. Your picture is young and cute, and that hairdo was in style at the time.

Laurie, you know I love you to bits, but even YOU could not get me to post a picture of myself looking bad! S'not happening! I am far too easily freaked out for that...this is speaking as someone who cut her own hair most of the time throughout my life, including the funky partial-shave-in-the-back things.

So, are you a Cancer much? We were born on the same day, and I have the same issue. Worked in broadcasting for 14 years, talked to people all day and did interviews, etc., then just went home and hid. I'm not sure that it goes away when you are 40, though--I just turned 40 this year, and I feel about the same--pretty much have to be dragged out of the house, still. I ran into a former co-worker of mine at a grocery store last night, and we were both in the same "don't bother me" mode--hat on (pulled down low), big coat, ratty clothes, no make-up, moving so fast through the store that nobody who thought they knew us could get a word in before we had already breezed past them, while the entire time we were concentrating on "look-at-the-floor-look-at-the-floor-look-at-the-floor...". OK, this actually didn't seem in any way unusual at the time, but, now that I write it all out...

Yeah, I've had some stupid 'dos. I didn't do a side mohawk--I shaved both sides and attempted a real one. Instead of spiking it up, though, I work it down and braided it. I thought I was so cool. Turns out, I wasn't. Oh well. I also colored my hair with tropical punch kool-aid once. Another disaster. My poor parents were always too embarrassed to take me out anywhere! :-)

I can't wait!

Laurie, PLEASE don't forget to show us the She-Mullet! I saw a woman with one the other day and wanted to shoo her back to the trailer park. And Julie, a "Mike Brady," that's great! I had that too, for several years! And I was deluded, thinking it looked really good.

I love your humor. Why aren't you writing a book?!

For what it's worth, my husband and I had passion for the first year of our marriage, then life and many mistakes crushed it, and ten YEARS later we found it again -- in spades. With two kids to raise, neither one of us has ever considered divorce an option (or believe me, I'd have done it five years ago when things were so bad). I just figured I'd signed on for better or worse and that I'd be stuck with worse forever, limping along until the end. No one is more surprised than I am to find love and passion again. It's all so unpredictable, isn't it?

D in TN

Laurie,

My family LOVE to bug me about my little PHASES too...including getting out albums of the MOST UGLY pictures imaginable the first time I bring a potential mate to the house!

This has nothing to do with Hairstory, but I was browsing this cute jewelry website and found CHEETO EARRINGS which reminded me of how you sometimes mention Cheetos in your blog:
http://www.naughtysecretaryclub.com/earrings/nostalgicnotions.shtml
(Scroll down for the Cheetos.)
PS Your Easy Knitted Felted Bracelet Bag is what about half of my friends are getting for Christmas this year. I'm finding excuses to do laundry so I can felt my bags :)

Man, I am going to get in so much trouble with my boyfriend for posting this, but I am compelled to share it with the world.

Here's a recent hairstory must read:
http://delirumisdelite.livejournal.com/93411.html

When I was about to enter sixth grade, I decided I wanted my hair cut short. I had it down past my waist, but I wanted it to be curly, and thus I decided on what I now know is called a pixie. Being a bit of a wimp and also insanely shy, I merely told the hairdresser that I wanted it short, and pointed at a spot near my ears.

She gave me a bob. I have a round face. I looked like a moon. A moon who perhaps had eaten a little too much green cheese.

I was too shy to correct her. I wore that stupid bob ALL YEAR because I was too shy to ask for it shorter.

Frosting on the cake? First day of school and my Bestest (and Only, at the time) Friend, who I'd known since preschool, walked up to me and held out her hand and said, "Hi, I'm Colleen, what's your name?"

.....I've never had anything other than a trim since.

I can't wait to see your pics!

In 8th grade, I had both a mullet and a rat-tail. Not at the same time, but what difference would it have made? I was already Clearly Uncool.

Nobody has mentioned "The FARRAH" yet! I can't believe it. Speaking of bad perms... I once had an "afro perm" (I'm white) and one of our church ladies told me not to EVAH! do that again.

I think we need to ask Drew to share a photo from his Duran-Duran days...